Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel RIP

ה' יקום דמם

As for you, murderers: we know who you are...

France: whose country is it?

This spectacle is quite amazing:

500 Muslims enter a CARREFOUR store in Paris, collect from the shelves all products imported from Israel, destroy them and call for a boycott.

French police did not intervene, the management of the supermarket stays away, other buyers do not intervene. Is this the future of France and Europe?

Just watch the video and be shocked!

Brazil vs Chile (and England): barely squeezed in...

Oh England, England... as if it was not enough that you forgot how to play the game, you are also bringing with you all kinds of second rate referees, like that detestable Howard Webb...

Thankfully, there are people who saw through that crap, like England's own Michael Owen:

Huge decision from Howard Webb to give handball against Hulk. I reckon he's got that one wrong.
— michael owen (@themichaelowen) June 28, 2014

And Gary Lineker weighs in too:

Just cancelling our dinner with Howard Webb!
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) June 28, 2014

What more do you want?

Oh, yes, and re Fred: I was holding Big Phil Scolari in much higher respect, but his inexplicable penchant for that waste of perfectly good boots is... inexplicable.

All in all: Brazil doesn't look ready for or deserving the Cup. And who could be more sorry than I am to say this?

Could you hold your breath for 5 minutes?

Nah, not really, a minute and a half will do:

Post by Kevin Wood.

Via Terry Glavin.

Professor Rabab Abdulhadi and SFSU strange way of financing science

I understand that it takes all kinds to push the science forward, but sometimes I wonder about the ways and means of pushing, as well as about the pushers. Like in this case:

Santa Cruz, CA, May 27, 2014 – A California Public Records Act inquiry, requested by AMCHA Initiative, revealed that San Francisco State University (SFSU) Professor Rabab Abdulhadi received more than $7,000 from SFSU to fly to Jordan, the West Bank and Israel to meet with members of known terrorist organizations. Abdulhadi was the faculty advisor to the SFSU knife-wielding student investigated by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force. She was also caught on tape glorifying terrorism to SFSU students.

Read the whole article, it is full of twists and turns like a good thriller.

I only ask myself: under what scientific discipline the report on this "research" trip will be filed?


The quite pathetic response of Ms Abdulhadi, an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies/Race, could be seen here.

And here is a masthead logo from a personal page of Professor Rabab Abdulhadi:

More kudos to SFSU...

The Council Has Spoken!

Council Winners

• *First place with 4 votes!- The Right Planet – About That ‘Server Ate My Emails’ Thing
• Second place with 3 votes –Joshuapundit-How The Palestinians And The Left Are Celebrating The Israeli Kidnappings
• Third place with 2 votes – The Independent Sentinel – Obama’s Presidency Is Over for the Public But He’s Just Getting Started
• Fourth place with 1 2/3 votes – The Colossus of Rhodey – Why (some) teachers complain so much
• Fifth place with 1 1/3 votes – The Razor – Immigration for Idiots
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Glittering Eye -What Should We Do In Iraq?
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Nice Deb – Rep Brady to Koskinen: “This is the most corrupt and deceitful IRS in history.”
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Noisy Room – The IRS Missing Email Scandal – A Brazen Obstruction Of Justice
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Simply Jews – A Hanukkah miracle in Aleppo – with a bit of physics
• Seventh place with 1/3 vote -VA Right! - Nancy Russell MUST Step Down as Chair of Hanover Republican Committee

Non-Council Winners

Read more »

I knew that everything is bigger in Texas

But these peanuts are kinda exceptional:

Save the penguins of Israel!

The following satire was written by late Mark Azov (1925-2011), playwright, novelist, poet, writer, satirist and humorist. Mark Azov was a member of the Unions of Writers of Russia and Israel, chairman of the North (Galilee) branch of the Union of Russian writers of Israel, the head of the literary association "Galilee", chief editor of "Galilee", author and actor of "Galilee" theater in Upper Nazareth. The translation that follows is not a professional one, hopefully one will be forthcoming in the future.

Save the penguins of Israel!

(Report from the XXII century)

"The dumb penguin shyly hiding his fat body in the crevice . . ."
Maxim Gorky

According to the newspaper "Allahu Akbar Times" (New York, 2169), the International League "Political Correctness Without Borders" conference held a regular daily session dedicated to the protection of native citizens of Antarctic coastal ice sheet.

A brief history of the issue. Sixty-nine years ago, with the advent of XXII century, by resolution of UC (United Caliphate), all Jews remaining on the planet have been allocated a territory to create their own national state. In order to avoid confrontation with the local population, after a long search, a "no man's zone" was found finally - namely a portion of the ice fields near the continent of Antarctica. There has been no population which could possibly qualify for the establishment of a sovereign state, .

To their credit: for 69 years the state, which the Jews call by the ancient name of Israel, has made significant progress in the field of economy, industry, science, education, culture and created the most powerful army on the icy continent. The Israelis have particularly succeeded in agriculture. Ice and snow are not in sight anymore. Ski lovers have to fly to Switzerland. Artificial soil of former ice fields grows all kinds of cereals and vegetables known to mankind. Banana plantations, gorgeous vineyards, olive groves amaze by variety, abundance and size of fruit. State of the art highways are lined by date palms. Citrus trees grow everywhere, including rooftops. Walls, fences, balconies are covered by climbing roses. Skyscrapers are made invisible by flowers. Creators of artificial climate are so skillful that people wear shorts and don't take them off even at the South Pole, where they go on holidays with their barbecues. In short, Jews settled the best, as always. And, as always, at the expense of the indigenous inhabitants of the occupied territories.

Who are these natives? Who owned the land, so to speak, before the Jewish invasion?

Activists of the "Political Correctness without Borders" noticed a miserable existence of Antarctic penguins, which are now suffering in this "pink-orange Jewish paradise".

Reader! Put yourself in the unfortunate penguin's place. Barely sixty-nine years ago, free penguin was diving from the ice edge into the icy waters in search of fish and warming his eggs in the snow, nurturing his offspring. Now he slaps his webbed feet on the hot asphalt highway lined by date palms, which don't make no nevermind to the poor penguin. Jews imagine themselves masters of the country, which belongs to the penguin - now a second-class citizen. The penguins are even not accepted by the Israeli army! Schools and universities, in which penguins study, hospitals in which they are treated, and social benefits that they get, and even if they occupy positions in public institutions and in parliament - all this is no more than a smokescreen, an attempt to create the appearance of equality and in fact, a mockery of the poor bird. The country is still Jewish. Unhappy brachypterous people, burdened by academic degrees, are forced to pull Jewish teeth, to cut their appendices, to sell them medicines in pharmacies or to protect the interests of Jews in court.

Simple uneducated penguins have to drive buses and taxis, sometimes, in despair, sell fruit and vegetables to Jews at the market, or, at worst, to open their shops or large chain department stores and restaurants so as not to die of hunger.

Reader! If you have a canary or a goldfinch, would you plant the poor feathered creature behind the steering wheel of a jeep? And the Jews, the owners of the country, forced the penguins to spend their hard-earned money on expensive cars and to drive them on city streets, listening to eardrums-bursting music. Poor bird! They even try to force the penguins to observe the traffic rules, so as not to crush a Jew accidentally. To what depths of inhumanity could you go to torture a living creature? And the Jewish girls bare their legs, shoulders and even bellies on purpose, so the penguins lose their senses and rush at the girls, emitting cries, swallowing snot and flapping their wings. In short, the suffering of penguins in Israel is immense and indescribable. The only thing the Jews don't do is eating the penguins, and this only because the latter is not kosher.

Is it possible, after all this, to blame Israeli penguins for their dislike of the Jews and disloyalty to the country?

"We are citizens of Antarctica! - They say proudly, - And all we have is Israeli passports and social benefits."

Jews are vainly trying to tame them, tempting the penguins by humanitarian aid. Columns of refrigerated juggernauts bring fish for penguins daily and nightly. However, these pitiful handouts from the oppressors cause nothing but indignation.

- Are we, the free birds of the cold seas, doomed to eat Jewish fish out of the fridge? - cried the freedom-loving penguins to the international community.

And, in the end, they got their way, their efforts were successful. By a special resolution of United Caliphate the Jews were invited to "go to Israel", i.e. back to the territory of the former Palestine.

"But there are the Arabs ..." - the Israeli Prime Minister Haim Ivanov tried to protest, which caused some laughter to the Assembly members:

"What Arabs? Arabs have all left for Europe and America a long time ago. Are they fools to tolerate your Jewish Khamsin?"

And then the cursed Zionists committed another crime against humanity. They left all the penguins in Antarctica for good. Abandoned them to their fate, along with palm trees, vines and roses that covered the skyscrapers. And they have packed their Jewish belongings and retreated to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, where for a long time nothing would grow. Only sand and stones, rocks and more sand, with the last trees gnawed by the goats.

Jews, of course, will make good there. But what happened with the penguins when the Jews went away and stopped supporting the artificial climate? Brachypterous feathered bipedals, spoiled by humanitarian assistance and the Ministry of Social Welfare, found themselves unprotected, on the edge of the ice, among ice floes in the seventy degrees frost, face to face with the ruthless nature of the Antarctic. Imagine an intelligent penguin with a master's degree from Hebrew University, an expert in the field of prosthetics (not beaks), with an Israeli passport, but without social support on bare ice with bare ass (well even if in shorts )...

The Israelis' brutal act caused an angry reaction from the world community. In the streets and squares in Paris, Brussels and Milwaukee incensed humanists broke fingers and cut off ears of those who tried to justify the inhumanity of the Zionists.

As the president of the International League "Political Correctness without Borders" Dr. John Ibn-Hara Suleiman said to our correspondent: "The atrocities of the Israeli military are not surprising."

Pity the bird ...

American student is pulled out of a giant German vagina intact

All's well that ends well. Besides, I dare say that all students were pulled out of that location at some point in time. This specific student was more lucky than an average person, having gone through the process twice already.

Details.

Not what you thought, surely?

Watcher’s Council Nominations: Amnesty By Stealth Edition

Council Submissions

• The Independent Sentinel – Obama’s Presidency Is Over for the Public But He’s Just Getting Started
• Simply Jews – A Hanukkah miracle in Aleppo – with a bit of physics
• The Noisy Room – The IRS Missing Email Scandal – A Brazen Obstruction Of Justice
• Joshuapundit-How The Palestinians And The Left Are Celebrating The Israeli Kidnappings
• Ask Marion – Rick Perry with Bill O’Reilly…Gov Perry Explains His Law Enforcement Surge on the Border
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Why (some) teachers complain so much
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Farewell Fouad
• Bookworm Room – A climate change poster: Scientists seem to go especially wrong when they all agree about something
• The Right Planet – About That ‘Server Ate My Emails’ Thing
• VA Right! - Nancy Russell MUST Step Down as Chair of Hanover Republican Committee
• Rhymes With Right – Hey, Texas Republicans — We Need A Change
• Nice Deb – Rep Brady to Koskinen: “This is the most corrupt and deceitful IRS in history.”
• The Razor – Immigration for Idiots
• The Glittering Eye -What Should We Do In Iraq?

Honorable Mentions

• The MidKnight Review – The thinking of a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (George Will) combined with a grass-roots understanding of the journalist’s solution to the current Constitutional crisis that is the Obama presidency.
• Sarah Honig – Immune From Penalty
• The Pirate’s Cove – Obama Admin Won’t Say How Many Illegals Were Released

Non-Council Submissions

Read more »

Presbyterian divestment from Israel: The Dying Swan dance or a marketing gimmick?

The news about the church’s General Assembly decision to divest from companies doing business with Israel wasn't, frankly, a bombshell. It was expected.

The church’s General Assembly voted by a razor-thin margin — 310-303 — to sell stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions, companies which supporters of the resolution said were involved in demolition and surveillance activities against Palestinians in the West Bank. Two years ago, the General Assembly rejected a similar divestment proposal by two votes.

The usual troublemakers (that call themselves "activists", of course) usually prevail in cases like these, when the majority of voting members simply succumb to the vociferous minority with a cause. As it happens, the main motive of the voters is to put an end to endless speechifying and verbal assaults by the said activists, while the voters themselves don't care and couldn't care less about the subject of the vote.

Of course, there is much to say for what some members of the church feel:

“We are already losing control of our message. Divestment will not end the conflict and bring peace. Divestment will bring dissension,” said resolution opponent Frank Allen, of the Presbytery of Central Florida.

But many in the upper layers of the church don't mind the dissension. After all, some of their best friends are Jewish...

Heath Rada, moderator for the church meeting, said immediately after the vote that “in no way is this a reflection of our lack of love for our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

Yeah, where did I hear this already? Anyway, to better express their love to their Jewish brothers and sisters, some leaders of Presbyterian church have sponsored the infamous “Zionism Unsettled”, "A how-to guide for class leaders and focused discussion prompts make it an ideal resource for multi-week exploratory education programs in churches, mosques, synagogues, and all classroom settings." I am not sure that many synagogues will fork out the money for the brochure, but many mosques will definitely scoop it up. Judging by the wholehearted approval by David Duke*, this is just the ticket...

Oh well, enough about love, let's proceed to mundane matters, such as (to choose a few) publicity, income, investments etc. You see, being a committed atheist, I confess to general ignorance in all matters religious. So I have done me some googling on the church in question. Apparently, Presbyterian church isn't doing so well, not in US of A in any case. Here is a bit of info on the subject:

Membership in the Presbyterian Church (USA) declined by more than 100,000 last year, according to the 2012 statistics released recently by the denomination’s Office of the General Assembly. It is the single largest annual membership decline since the PCUSA was formed in 1983.

This doesn't bode well for the outfit. Of course, any effort that increases publicity is welcome to the management, and what better than a noisy scandal about a BDS move? To some members of the church it seems to be worth a bit of internal dissent, I guess. And who knows - it may bring some much needed petrodollars from you know who in the future.

And now to a purely technical matter. The ToI article, linked in the beginning of this post, shows a curious picture with an even more curious caption:

Several attendants of the Presbyterian General Assembly in Detroit form a prayer circle and sing for Israeli-Arab peace. Two are seen wearing shirts which read: “Another Jew supporting divestment.”

Jews (or people who consider themselves Jewish) in a Presbyterian prayer circle? While I don't know much about religion, I know that one can't be a Jew and a Presbyterian simultaneously. But who knows, maybe there is some new edict by the church that allows it... what do I know? Anyway, this is just a technicality, as I've mentioned.

(*) And no, the Presbyterian site doesn't include David Duke's glowing testimony for some unknown reason, so I was forced to link to the original.

Update: NGO Monitor published a report: The Role of Antisemitism in the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Decision to Support Divestment. I am not very hot on shouting "antisemitism" on every occasion. But read the report, at least the KEY POINTS part.

Italy vs. Uruguay - 0:1

The birds don't sing.

The dogs don't bark.

The children don't shout.

The ice cream is liquifying.

The pizzas are burning in the oven.

The wine is going sour.

And the smiliest Italian looks like this:

Ciao, Italy.

P.S. He who goes into a bunker, will end up in a bunker...

P.P.S. And the best response to Suarez biting Chiellini:

To be fair to Luis Suarez, I can’t resist an Italian sub either.
— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) June 24, 2014

Rule 5: Texas Tan Line

Via Texas Scribbler.

A Hanukkah miracle in Aleppo - with a bit of physics

The story is widely spread in the Russian internet sites, but I haven't seen yet its English rendering. So here it comes, in the midst of the summer, but there is always the next Hanukkah (Chanukah or Chanukkah). Whether the story is true - I don't know, but it is all good, I promise. So enjoy and prepare your dreidels.

Everything happens for the first time once. Once upon a time the Israeli Air Force decided on a kind of a flying warning: a supersonic bypass at low altitude. Over a Syrian town of Aleppo, and the flight should have passed the main street of the city. Since then, much Cast Lead was spilled, and every time that Assad mentions in his speech the recapture of the Golan Heights, Israeli jets are visible from his window again.

But then, that first time, it was an experimental trick with a powerful propaganda effect in the form of a strong sonic boom along the flight path, which creates a pressure differential in the front known as the Mach Cone. Since it was the first time and quite a long time ago, when computers were large and cumbersome, the calculation of the best flight altitude was assigned to the IDF eggheads, which, as it happens with theorists, made a mistake of about 100% in their estimates.

The planes flew too low - and all the windows and lights on the main street of the peaceful and quiet Syrian town were shattered. Which was considered by the Israeli military experts an unexpected propaganda effect. It took the surprised Syrians a week to clean the debris from the street, the IDF conducted a usual debriefing, physicists were looking for the unexpected twist in the equations ...

Time passed, and the chief of that Aleppo operation, David Ivry, who later became a commander of the Israeli Air Force, picked up a kid hitchhiker. The kid was a new immigrant from Aleppo (in those days there were immigrants from other than CIS countries). And the boy told him that life in the city of Aleppo in Syria was good to the Jews, none of the Arabs touched them, until suddenly a miracle happened on Hanukkah - and the miracle caused his father to decide to come to Israel. And what, in fact, was that miracle? On Hanukkah, Israeli planes flew over and completely blew out all the windows on the main street - except at the Jewish shops!

- Are you sure about this? - asked Ivry. - Absolutely! - replied the boy, and added: - The Jews used the same glass as everyone else. The same! This is a miracle, and that's it!

Where lies the solution of this phenomenon? - Ivry wondered.  And he appointed an investigation committee. So what was the result? A long time ago in Aleppo some Emir or Pasha issued a decree, according to which Jews were forbidden to trade on the main street. And the cunning Jews kept their shops only in lanes perpendicular to the central street. Historically there were none of non-Jewish shops in these alleys. When the devastating Israeli sonic boom has come, the Jewish shops' windows were positioned perpendicular to the sonic boom front, and thus survived intact...

And Aleppo Jews decided that it was a divine sign given to them on Hanukkah - to immigrate to Israel before it's too late .. .

Hat tip: L.G.

Blogging will be light for a while

For the duration of the next two week, at least.

You all out there - behave.

The Council Has Spoken!

Council Winners

• *First place with 5 votes! – Joshuapundit-‘The Horror That Is America’ – Ransoming Bowe Bergdahl
• Second place with 1 2/3 votes –The Noisy Room – War Is Peace, Citizens Are The Enemy
li>Third place with 1 1/3 vote –The Right Planet – The Strange Case Of Bowe Bergdahl

• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –
• The Razor – Guess I’m a Racist Too
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –The Independent Sentinel – Destroying the US to Slow the Rise of the Oceans and Heal the Planet.
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –Liberty’s Spirit – Trigger Warnings, Honest Realities and Stupid Celebrity Tricks
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Jütland
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –
• Nice Deb – Video: Obama Receives Only Tepid Applause at West Point
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews – IRS TAG BOLO-es Z Street
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Colossus of Rhodey – Child-like comicbook creators just can’t decide
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –
• The Glittering Eye -Schedules Without Milestones

Non-Council Winners

Read more »

Awesome...

Via (a slightly dignified version of "stolen from") Louise, with thanks.

Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust - a charity for would be martyrs?

Not that I know anything about Quakers or Quakers' ways of charity, but this looks extremely curious:

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) is a Quaker grant making trust founded in 1904 by Joseph Rowntree, which claims to support “people who address the root causes of conflict and injustice.”  Despite these high-minded aspirations, however, the JRCT funds a number of extremist organisations:

CagePrisoners (£135,000)

CAGE (formerly CagePrisoners) is a terrorist support group run by confessed terrorist Moazzam Begg, “Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban,” who once admitted to visiting terrorist training camps on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he was responsible for “small arms and mountain tactics” training. Begg has recently been charged with terrorism offences following his return from a visit to Syria.

CAGE has promoted the conspiracy theory that “9/11 could be insurance fraud” planned by “Zionist billionaires.”

And more on that exciting list of very suspicious outfits benefiting from the largess of Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

How about IRS getting on that case, instead of harassing some less annoying groups?

Update: The trust in question is a UK affair, so it is up to the British version of IRS. Thanks to Brian Goldfarb for clarification.

Men: keep this always in mind!

And, if you are an Android man (as a real man should be), here is a handy tip.

Be safe.

Watcher’s Council Nominations -Trading For Private Weasel Edition

Council Submissions

• Liberty’s Spirit – Trigger Warnings, Honest Realities and Stupid Celebrity Tricks
• The Noisy Room – War Is Peace, Citizens Are The Enemy
• The Independent Sentinel – Do You Know Who Is Really Destroying the Environment and Mankind
• Joshuapundit-‘The Horror That Is America’ – Ransoming Bowe Bergdahl
• Simply Jews – IRS TAG BOLO-es Z Street
• The Right Planet – The Strange Case Of Bowe Bergdahl
• Ask Marion – It Does Make A Difference To Hillary Now
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Child-like comicbook creators just can’t decide
• Bookworm Room – Yet another murderously dangerous DemProg is on the loose *UPDATED*
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Jütland
• Nice Deb – Video: Obama Receives Only Tepid Applause at West Point
• The Glittering Eye -Schedules Without Milestones
• The Razor – Guess I’m a Racist Too
• VA Right! - Virginia Right! Endorses Shak Hill for US Senate! 2007 Scandal Renders Ed Gillespie Unelectable
• Truth Revolt – Feinstein: Obama Violated Law In Gitmo Deal submitted by VA Right!
• Rhymes With Right – Patrick Byrne On Economic Warfare And Transnational Organized Crime

Honorable Mentions

• David Gerstman/Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – How Anxious is Obama to Make a Deal with Iran?
• The Mellow Jihadi – Gwyneth Paltrow’s military mind
• The Pirate’s Cove – Obama’s Climate Policy Thought: “Are we ready for battle?”
• Seraphic Secret – Obama’s Constant Traitors

Non-Council Submissions

Read more »

Finally! Blondes exonerated. So?

This article from The Telegraph has proved what was quite clear to everyone:

The fair-haired have long endured accusations that they are less intelligent than brunettes, to the extent that an unexpected show of stupidity is now referred to as a ‘blonde moment.’

But blondes should take heart. Scientists have now discovered that hair colour is determined by a single letter of the genetic code – and it is completely unrelated to any other inherited trait.

Of course, the jokes about blondes and their alleged stupidity are more a pastime than a belief, that much was clear to everyone. However, if someone felt that this point needs a scientific investigation, so be it.

Only two remarks about the article itself. First of all, one shouldn't use a picture of an extraterrestrial as proof of anything that is happening on this planet.

And the second item: the lede of the article. Well, there is a bug there:

Emphasis (in blue) mine...

Since the article is by Sarah Knapton (a smallish picture of her in the article), an inevitable question arises: does Sarah dye her hair?

And, in directly related news:

Watching pornography damages men's brains

Mee no can reed arrticul... to conflikated...

Good-bye, King Juan Carlos. Be well.

The news were expected, since the man suffers from several ailments and it's time to get some rest.

What was unexpected is the drop in popularity of the King, coupled with some derision from the people he dedicated his life to. I am looking at the so called "reasons" for the drop and shaking my head.

But the King's popularity took a hit in 2012 over a controversial elephant hunting trip to Africa while the nation was mired in a deep economic crisis.

And:

Princess Cristina, the King's youngest daughter, is caught up in a tax fraud and money laundering investigation.

These are good enough reasons to throw dirt at the man who headed the difficult transition from the days of Franco to democracy? The man who prevented a coup that endangered the country's future?

The short memory of the people and the lack of gratefulness and grace are not exactly news, but every single case, especially like this one, grates. Well, now tell me more about the wisdom of the people, please...

Be well, King Juan Carlos, you are the men's Man.

P.S. And, not to forget, this is the same man who told the late and unlamented Caudillo Hugo Chavez "¿Por qué no te callas?" ("Why don't you shut up?"). Another good deed in the list.

IRS TAG BOLO-es Z Street

The headline was made as opaque as possible intentionally. Just an attempt to mimic the fashionable government-speak of the recent years. What government functionary doesn't secretly yearn for a uniform, complete with a side arm, highly polished boots and all kinds of regimental and other stickers, strategically placed on the said uniform, after all? And the dim three- or four-letter abbreviations are part and parcel of looking (or, at least, feeling) manly, I guess. As close to a Tom Clancy techno-thriller as possible...

But I promise to unravel the tangle of these abbreviations, as we go further into the article what tells the whole sad story. There is that relatively new organization, Z Street that was founded to counterweight the (by now) famous left wing J Street, the one that walks a very thin line between what they call support for Israel and flirting with various anti-Israeli outfits (infamous BDS not excluded).

Whatever the reasons for creating Z Street are and whatever it does as the counterweight to J Street are topics I am totally not going into in this post. What boggles my mind is IRS involvement with this (and many other, as far as I understand) organizations in US that for some reason seem to fall out of favor with the current administration. "IRS", by the way, is an abbreviation that hardly needs my interpretation.

To avoid misunderstanding, I'll make an effort to be as objective as possible and state up front that I don't have a problem with a government (any government) that wants to make sure that its generosity, expressed in bestowing tax-exempt status to moneys flowing to an out-of-country outfits, isn't being abused for some hidden aims that differ from these of the said government. It is the government's prerogative and one should be a hypocrite to object to that statement. So there.

Apparently, IRS has a TAG (Touch and Go) department, under which brief come some cases of organizations that ask for tax-exempt status, while suspected of activities not aligned with what US government would consider kosher.

According to the agency’s Internal Revenue Manual, TAG’s purpose is to “identify cases handled by Exempt Organizations (EO) Determinations early in the process that may involve an abusive tax avoidance transaction, fraud, or terrorism.”

Don't you feel a shiver reading this? I dare say I wouldn't like to fall into one of these three categories, would you? But rest assured, neither abusive tax avoidance nor fraud were a part of what triggered Z Street being investigated by the intrepid TAG. So, as you can see, the one that is left is the big T. How come, you ask? Here it is:

The manager of the IRS’s TAG group, Jon Waddell, said in a sworn affidavit in the Z Street litigation that he determined that Z Street’s application should be referred to the TAG group because its application indicated it “could be providing resources to organizations within Israel or facilitating the provision of resources to organizations within the state of Israel” and that “Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that “have a ‘higher risk of terrorism.’”

This is mind-boggling. The sheer all-inclusive absurdity of this simple exercise, when the language is dumbed down to suit any nefarious purpose, is awful in its bureaucratic splendor.

This is a life saving formula for any bureaucrat who will want to do something anti-Israeli, hiding behind this all-inclusive sentence. Israel has a ‘higher risk of terrorism’, so... (substitute a punishment of your own). With a small leap of imagination one can see the same formula applied to Boeing, Lockheed etc. supplies to Israel. Or anything else, for that matter...

I am not very good in providing parallels, but this mind-boggling formula is akin to a judge sentencing a criminal and his victim to the same prison time, since "I don't care who started first". Amazing. But this is a government-issue bit of wisdom to you. Go and argue with it. If you will.

(I know, I know - I didn't explain what BOLO means. For crying out loud - don't you watch these police procedurals? Anyway, it is in the second paragraph of that article.)

Rule 5: premonition

Why do I have a feeling that the boy on the right side of this picture is going to fail his next exam?

Eva Green's questionable nudity and MPAA: prudes or professional pervs?

The New York Post indignant headline MPAA prudes : Too much boob on Eva Green’s ‘Sin City’ poster couldn't have been missed here, in this citadel of free expression. Here comes the poster in question:

The reason the above poster was banned is “for nudity — curve of under breast and dark nipple/areola circle visible through sheer gown”. And, after looking at the poster another time, in order to discern the said curve and the said nipple circle, I was struck by a simple question. The question caused me some doubts about the NYPost headline, by the way.

I mean, here I am, an average hetero male person, looking at the poster for the first time and finding it moderately attractive and moderately titillating - as, probably, expected and desired by its creators. The point is, I would have never even dreamed about analyzing such tiny details like curves and circles, hadn't these details been mentioned by the censor.

But - and this is an important but - someone in MPAA, whose job it, most probably, is, had the time, the inclination and the expertize to get up close and personal to this poster and really check every pixel...

So, the question is: what kind of perv does it take to do that as part of his job?